


Birds Out of a Cage

by futurelounging



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Gotham's Writing Workshop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurelounging/pseuds/futurelounging
Summary: Claire feels trapped and takes action.Week #5 of Gotham's Writing Workshop





	Birds Out of a Cage

“This new lock I put on this door - ain’t nobody kickin’ this down, Mrs. Randall. Not that anyone would in this neighborhood, but better safe than sorry, right?”

“Indeed, Mr. Murphy. Thank you.” He bent to gather his tools from the rug in the foyer and Claire’s mind drifted up the staircase to the bathroom. “Before you go...is there a way to fit a new lock on the bathroom door upstairs? We’ve lost the skeleton key.”

Mr. Murphy stood next to her and looked up the stairs, as if he could see the door. He rubbed his fingers on his stubble, the scratching of it too loud in the empty house. “You’d have to get a whole new knob and plate. Normally I’d say let’s do it, but this is a pretty nice old place and a new one would stick out quite a bit. You might ask your husband to put a little hook on it. I’ll do it if you want though.”

_The bubbles long since disappeared, she’s sunk lower into the water, closed her eyes, and felt him. Jamie. His fingers had crawled up her sides, circling her breasts, rolling her nipples against his thumbs until she moaned, exactly what he’d wanted to hear. His self-satisfied hum of contentment the only sound she could hear, save her own moans, her own hitching breath. One hand traveled lower until it settled over her, cupping her, and she ground up against him, desperate. So lightly, so slowly, he circled a finger until her squirming splashed water over the edge of the bathtub. “Jamie.” His fingers slid into her and she lifted her hips, begging him to go deeper. She gripped the side of the tub as her body tensed and her breathing became frantic. A gasp, a splash, another, another._

_A creak._

_When she heard the door, saw the water she’d splashed rolling toward his slippered feet, she made no sound, but steadied her breath and stared at the wall before her._

_“You’re making a mess on the floor.” Frank threw down a towel and left, carefully closing the door behind him._

“No. No, you’re right. It wouldn’t look good with the rest of the hardware. Thank you for your honesty.”

* * *

 

Claire sat at the small table in the kitchen, picking at a piece of burnt toast. With Brianna at school all day, the quiet of the house pressed in on her; every tick of the clock, drip of the radiators, rattle of the pipes, creak of the floor, squeak of the doors - all the sounds that ought to blend into the background had become amplified - a loudspeaker of mundanity.

She took a sip of tepid tea and pulled a stray bit of leaf from her lip, wiping it on the edge of the plate. A flutter of motion caught her eye.

“You’re back.” The goldfinch had first appeared on the bush outside the kitchen window a few weeks ago, startling her as she was sweeping the crumbs from below Brianna’s chair. The finch turned its head to the window. “Admiring your reflection?”

Claire’s focus pulled back and she admired her own in the glass. Her hair curled delicately against the shoulders of her blue flower-print dress. She was fit and proper and lovely. And alone. Behind stone and wood and glass. The finch suddenly launched itself away with no regard to its audience.

“There you go.”

Her eyes lost focus into the dark green of the shrub and she saw before her an endless sea of green, rolling over hills, disappearing into snow-capped mountains. The memory of the horse beneath her body, thundering through the open land, gripped her. Blue sky pushing through the clouds, in a vibrant world containing only the two of them. Wind whistling and gusting up her skirts and his solid warmth seeping through her clothing, her skin, straight to the bone.

She felt his breath on her neck, his mouth tickling her right behind her ear. “Sassenach”.

The blood roared in her head and she pushed the chair violently back from the table, scraping against the linoleum. She grabbed her rain boots, a coat, turned the key in the new, shiny front door lock, and drove away.

Away from every door, every pane of glass, every lock, every drop of water on the bathroom floor.

* * *

 

“It’s a family situation.”

The secretary opened a ledger and slowly turned to the second grade classrooms page. “Is it an emergency then, dear?”

“Yes.”

“Oh no. What’s happened?”

“I really need to get her. I’m sorry. Thank you.” Claire retreated from the office before the woman had a chance to ask again. Brianna’s face lit up when Claire peeked her head in the door. She grabbed her books and ran to her mother before her teacher even had a chance to inquire. “We have a bit of an emergency I’m afraid. Brianna will be back tomorrow.”

She barely registered the teacher’s request that Brianna practice her spelling tonight for tomorrow’s quiz. They briskly walked down the hall and she leaned into her mother, tugging at her sleeve. “What’s wrong? Where are we going?”

As soon as they got into the car, Claire turned to her daughter and smiled at her worried face. “I didn’t mean to scare you, honey. What’s wrong is that it is a beautiful day and we should not be trapped inside. These birds need to get out of their cage and fly.”

Bree began hopping in her seat as her mother spoke. “Are we really going to fly somewhere?”

“Oh no, sorry. Just a metaphor. But we’re going to Middlesex Fells and we are going to hike and run in the sun and count all the animals we see. Oh, and don’t say a word to your teacher about what we did.”

She kissed the back of her mother’s neck and squealed with delight. Brianna began a steady stream of adventure plans from the back seat including feeding ducks, building a fort from branches, and possibly seeing a bear, although her mother advised she not get her hopes up for that.

As the shadows grew long in the afternoon, Claire perched on a rock on the edge of the lake, dipping her dirty rainboot in the water and swirling it about. Her blue flower-print dress was splattered with mud, courtesy of a vigorous puddle-stomping. Bree stood at the water’s edge a few feet away, skipping smooth stones over the lake’s glassy surface. Claire’s heart stuttered with love for her daughter, for _their_ daughter, and her vision blurred when Bree looked at her grinning, red hair wild about her face.

“There you go.”


End file.
